JASPER, Tenn. – When Edward Moriarty drove up to the Jasper Highlands development earlier this month to check on the construction of his retirement home, his car caught fire.
He called 911 and two Marion County sheriff’s deputies responded, but no fire services arrived.
“No fire truck,” Moriarty said. “No fire support whatsoever.”
When the deputies called in the fire again, the dispatcher told them that no one was coming.
Moriarty, a career firefighter himself, told the Marion County Commission this week that he’d never seen anything like it.
“I’ve never known a place where you couldn’t pick up the telephone and get help, whether it’s police or fire service,” he said. “My car burned to a cinder. It was a total loss.”
He said his new house is expected to be complete in December and the insurance coverage will probably be “pretty steep” without fire protection.
Phillip Graham, an insurance agent with the Farm Bureau office in Jasper, said the difference in annual insurance premiums is significant.
Like Jasper Highlands, there are several areas of Marion County that are fire-response “no-man’s land,” Graham said.
A policy for a homeowner born in 1950 who has a $400,000 newly built home in South Pittsburg, which has the county’s best fire services rating of 4, would cost $947 a year. The same home in one of the areas without fire department coverage would cost $1,541 a year through Farm Bureau – a difference of $594, Graham said.
Insurers in Marion County often go to rural home sites to check on whether they are within one of the volunteer fire hall districts, he said.
County Mayor David Jackson said the Foster Falls Volunteer Fire Department covers parts of Jasper Mountain, but that organization voted not to cover Jasper Highlands last year.
Other nearby departments won’t respond to the development, he said, because it is in an area not covered by a mutual aid agreement. Responding there could hold those fire departments liable if something happened in their own coverage areas, Jackson said.
He said he has spoken with Jasper Highlands developer John “Thunder” Thornton about the lack of fire services for the development and encouraged him to construct a small fire hall and purchase a fire truck for it.
Moriarty said the lack of fire coverage there was “a pretty well-kept secret” when he was purchasing the land.
“He [Thornton] is well aware that there is no fire coverage on his property,” Commissioner Matt Blansett told Moriarty. “Right now, there is no fire department that’s going to respond to your area.”
Blansett said the development’s best option is to form its own fire department – and fast.
Thunder Enterprises president Dane Bradshaw said Thursday that a building that can house a fire truck is nearly complete and a fire truck purchase is in the works.
The Jasper Highlands fire truck will be the second Thunder Enterprises has bought for use in Marion County.
The first one was given to the Foster Falls Volunteer Fire Department – the one that voted later not to cover Jasper Highlands – after the department’s previous fire truck burned, Bradshaw said.
Jasper Highlands was developed without any government help, and that it appears fire protection will fall on Thornton, too, Bradshaw said.
“We’ve built our own multimillion-dollar road, water system and brought power up the mountain with 100-percent private money and will do the same for our fire system,” Bradshaw said. “We’re close to completing a new building that will house a new fire truck that we’ll be buying.”
Bradshaw said the community is growing rapidly, and the importance of fire protection is understood.
“We’re on pace to sell over 200 lots this year alone,” Bradshaw said. A year ago, only three homes were under construction. Now, there are 23 homes built or under construction, and seven of them are occupied, he said.
Jasper Highlands officials were surprised departments didn’t respond to the car fire, Bradshaw said.
“We’re not blaming them for not responding; they restricted the area they serve,” he said.
Twenty-five years ago there were no rural fire departments in Marion County.
“Each community got together and had square dances and cake walks and raised money and bought junk fire trucks,” Commission Chairman Gene Hargis said. “They put them together and built from there. That’s why you have all these small community departments.”
He said it’s an option that the Jasper Highlands community will have to examine.
“The system’s quite fractured between the county and municipalities,” Moriarty said. “There’s not a lot of overlap.”
His wife, Linda, noted how some commissioners were smiling during her husband’s and her comments on the matter.
“The smiles mean you’re right on what you’re saying,” Commissioner Donald Blansett said. “There’s some things we need to work on, and that’s part of it.”
As it stands now, if there is a house fire in the Jasper Highlands development, no fire departments would respond.
“Is that right?” Linda Moriarty asked the board.
“That’s correct,” Hargis said. “There are a lot of houses finished up there, and there’s a lot being built. This is something that needs to be addressed, I think, pretty quickly.”
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.